by Roan Parrish
Simon let out a small laugh, low and light, and Jack found himself in the surprising position of having to revise his favorite sound.
“You can move them if you wanna sit there,” Jack said, just to say something.
Simon shook his head and sat on the couch instead. He seemed the most relaxed Jack had seen him.
Jack sank down on the couch too, easing his casted leg to rest on the coffee table.
“You aren’t missing work, are you?” Jack asked softly, hoping to preserve Simon’s relaxation. “I just realized you never told me what you do.”
Simon shook his head. Swallowed. Tucked his hands underneath him.
“It’s fine. I work from home. G-graphic design.”
“That’s cool. You’re an artist too.”
Simon scoffed. “Not like you.”
“Lemme see?”
He handed Simon his phone. Simon blinked at him for a moment, then let out a sigh and pulled up his website. He scrolled peremptorily through a few pages before Jack grabbed the phone from his hand to peruse in detail.
Simon’s designs were deceptively simple and Jack made note of the URL so he could look at the site later on his computer and see more of the detail. What at first looked like a simple border was, on closer inspection, words marching around the page. A clean layout of squares revealed itself, when you got to the bottom, to form the initials of the company. To the casual observer they were minimal and modern, but each design had a wink.
“These are amazing.”
Simon ducked his head but he was smiling.
“Have you always worked from home?”
Given Simon’s trouble speaking with people it would make sense that he sought out something he could do solo.
Simon shook his head.
“I worked at a c-company before.” He shuddered. “It was awful. Cubicles and p-people and no one would leave me alone.”
“What’d they do?” Jack asked, preemptively furious on Simon’s behalf.
Simon turned to him, eyes wide with horror. “Talked to me! Had b-birthday cakes and—and holiday parties.”
Jack laughed at his nauseated expression. “Monsters.”
Simon smiled and rolled his eyes.
The fire crackled cheerily along with the chorus of animal whuffles and burbles.
“If you don’t have to be at work,” Jack said slowly, “do you want to hang out? Watch a movie or something? Doesn’t seem like the storm’s letting up anytime soon...”
Simon nodded and joy zinged up Jack’s spine. He grabbed the remote before Simon could change his mind and started flipping channels.
He flipped past sports and news and reality TV and soap operas, finding nothing. He’d learned the hard way the last few weeks that television wasn’t organized for people with nothing to do during the day. Jack switched over to Netflix and Simon perked up.
“You pick, okay?”
He handed Simon the remote.
Simon bit his lip and extricated a hand from where he was sitting on them to take it.
He scrolled directly to The Great British Bake Off and raised a questioning eyebrow at Jack.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“What!?”
“I don’t bake.”
“That’s—That—that,” Simon stammered, but this seemed out of passion rather than shyness. “That has nothing to do with anything.”
Jack held up his hands in surrender and settled in to watch.
After a few minutes of Simon looking over at him expectantly he said, “It’s very... British?”
“What does that mean?”
“People are nice to each other and no one’s an asshole and they’re pretending they don’t wanna win?”
“Yeah,” Simon sighed blissfully.
After a few more minutes, Jack found himself having strong feelings about bakers and baked goods alike.
“That seems bad,” he said. “That seems like a terrible choice. There’s not time for that! Is there? I don’t know; I don’t bake!”
At his yell, Dandelion jumped up, startled. When she saw nothing was amiss besides underbaked cakes she flopped back down and didn’t look up again until Jack’s next outburst.
“You’re scaring the p-pack,” Simon said, swatting Jack’s leg for emphasis.
Unfortunately, it was his broken leg and Jack cringed. It hadn’t hurt so much as promised to hurt, but Simon babbled out a stream of apologies, face a mask of horror, until Jack twisted at the waist and grabbed his shoulders.
“I’m fine. It’s okay, really.”
“Sorry,” Simon said for the twentieth time, and this time it had no sound.
Jack ran his hands from Simon’s shoulders down his arms and took his hands.
“Seriously. You didn’t hurt me.”
Simon tugged one of his hands away.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, and let go, realizing suddenly that holding hands wasn’t necessarily something that everyone was comfortable with.
Simon shook his head and sat on his reclaimed hand.
“It t-t—” He snapped his mouth shut and rolled his eyes, as if exasperated with himself.
Jack grabbed his phone and held it out to Simon.
When Simon gave it back to him it said, My hand twitches. It’s from my medication, and an .
“What medication?”
For anxiety, Simon wrote. It’s a side effect. Muscle twitches.
Simon pulled his knees up and pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over himself.
“Do they happen more when you’re nervous? Uh, anxious?”
Simon shook his head. He reached for the phone, then seemed to change his mind.
“It j-just happens. Once it starts, it happens f-for a while. Hate it.”
“Is it just your hand?”
He shook his head and pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
“My thighs somet-times. My...” He trailed off, scowling.
“Does massage help?” Jack asked.
Simon’s eyes snapped to his. He shrugged. And Jack wanted to kill every single person in the world who hadn’t offered to massage Simon’s twitching muscles.
“Want to try?” Then, realizing what that sounded like, “Your hand, I mean.”
He held out his own hand, palm up, in offering. Simon blinked. Then slowly he leaned closer, slid his hand out of the covers, and placed it in Jack’s.
“Watch the show,” Jack said.
For the next twenty minutes as they watched the bakers measure, mix, shape, and decorate, Jack massaged Simon’s hand. At first, he could feel micromovements that Simon was trying to stifle. Slowly, as Simon relaxed again, the twitches would flex his thumb up and back.
“It’s okay,” Jack murmured softly, massaging up Simon’s wrist.
Simon sighed and let his head drop onto the back of the couch. The episode ended and another began. Jack dug his thumbs into Simon’s palm.
Simon tipped his head to look at Jack. His eyelids were heavy and there was a slight smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. Or maybe that was just what his face looked like when he wasn’t clenching his jaw.
“Feel okay?”
Simon nodded, eyelashes fluttering.
“Want me to keep going?”
Simon nodded again.
This close, Jack could smell his shampoo in Simon’s hair. He was aware of every shift and breath. Jack wanted to pull him close, kiss his lips, twist his fingers in that unruly hair.
A rip of thunder split the air. Simon startled, jerking upright, and the animals whined.
“It’s okay,” Jack soothed, and though he’d been talking to the pack, Simon settled too.
Lightning flashed and a whine came from the bedroom. Puddles.
“Puddles is sca
red of lightning,” Jack explained, regretfully pushing himself off the couch. A sweet smile touched Simon’s lips and he nodded.
In the bedroom, Jack could just make out a lump at the foot of the bed. Puddles had rucked all the covers off and buried himself beneath them, not an inch of fur visible. On top of the pile sat Louis.
“Aw, buddy.”
Jack perched on the edge of the bed and patted the pile, feeling the trembling dog beneath. Louis fixed him with an even look, on guard but not unwelcoming.
“It’s good he has you to protect him,” Jack told Louis.
Louis slow-blinked at him magnanimously.
Simon appeared in the doorway brandishing his phone.
“I’m gonna check on my grandma,” he said, but he walked toward the bed.
He raised a questioning eyebrow at the blanket mountain with Louis perched on top and Jack nodded.
“Hey, Puddles,” Simon crooned. He got to his knees on the floor and lifted the very edge of the blanket to slide one hand underneath. “Being scared sucks so much. I’m sorry.”
He put his chin on the bed and after a minute Jack saw a trembling nose emerge from the blankets and inch toward Simon’s. Puddles gave Simon’s cheek a lick, then retreated back to safety.
Jack felt a funny emptiness in his stomach.
Louis, as if he could sense the danger had passed, put his head on his paws and closed his eyes.
Instead of leaving the room, Simon dialed his phone with the hand that wasn’t under Puddles’ blankets.
“I just wanted to check on you,” he said. “I know. I know you can.” He rolled his eyes but his smile was fond. “No one is debating that, Jean. Because!” He laughed. “Yes, ma’am. Yeah. Just til the storm passes. Oh, okay.” His eyes flicked to Jack. “No you cannot! Goodbye, I love you,” he said quickly and hung up the phone.
“What can she not?”
“She wanted, um. To talk to you. And make sure you didn’t let me leave until the st-storm ended.”
Jack was charmed by that.
“I would’ve reassured her.”
Simon was blushing and had looked away.
“What?”
He shook his head. “She’s just... Never mind.”
He turned even redder.
“She’s just what?”
Simon buried his face in the bed like a little kid and spoke into the mattress.
“Didn’t catch that.”
Simon put his arms over his head in a gesture that was so adorable and ridiculous that Jack’s heart ached.
Cursing his leg for the umpteenth time, Jack lifted himself off the bed and came around to where Simon was. Simon’s comfort language was clearly touch and Jack wanted his body back so he could speak it fluently. Laboriously and slowly, he lowered himself to the bench at the foot of the bed to sit beside Simon and put a hand on his shoulder.
Making his voice light so Simon would have no doubt he was joking, he said, “Don’t make me call your grandma back myself.”
Simon groaned and peeled himself off the bed, but still wouldn’t meet Jack’s eyes. But he didn’t look shy, just embarrassed.
“She wants to play m-matchmaker,” Simon mumbled. His face and throat were flushed and lust tore through Jack. He wanted to be the one to bring that flush to Simon’s skin. He wanted to do everything to Simon.
“Is that right.” His voice was low and rough. He’d never gone from finding someone adorable to wanting to ravage them in five seconds flat and it was wreaking havoc inside him.
Simon’s head jerked up at his voice, eyes wide and hot.
“And why does she think we’d be a good match?” Jack drawled.
Simon blinked. Blinked again. His pupils dilated.
“I... Um, I... I might’ve, um.” He shook his head in frustration and squeezed his eyes shut. “I said you were handsome,” he whispered, eyes closed.
Handsome. The word ricocheted around in Jack’s brain before sliding sweetly down to rest in his chest. It was so unassuming, so...grandmotherly a word, but it was so very Simon.
Not attractive, not hot. Handsome.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I think you’re handsome too.”
At that, Simon’s eyes flew open.
“Not just handsome,” Jack went on. He reached out a hand slowly—so very slowly—and traced Simon’s eyebrow, cheekbone, chin. “Gorgeous. Beautiful. Fucking stunning.”
Jack hadn’t thought it was possible for Simon to turn redder, but it was. His eyelashes fluttered wildly and he gulped.
“Wow,” he said on a breath.
Then he hiccoughed. He clapped a hand over his mouth but hiccoughed again. He groaned. Jack had never seen someone look so mortified in his life. This eclipsed even Charlie’s expression when their mom had found out he’d been reading the sex scenes in her romance novels.
Simon pulled his knees up and dropped his forehead to them. Jack couldn’t tell if he was hiding or trying to cure the hiccoughs.
Jack put a hand on his shoulder and when Simon didn’t shy away he began slowly rubbing Simon’s back. He could feel the hiccoughs as well as hear them. Simon muttered something to himself that Jack couldn’t make out. After a few minutes, Simon peeked at Jack.
“Doing okay?”
Simon glared and Jack laughed.
“Not my fault you’re gorgeous and your body revolts at a compliment.”
Simon smiled a little.
“I don’t suppose...” Jack started. But he lost his train of thought as Simon sat upright. The redness had faded to just a blush on his cheeks, and his hair was mussed. He was so damn beautiful.
Simon raised an eyebrow and Jack cupped his cheek.
“Don’t suppose you wanna kiss me?” Jack said, voice rough with desire.
Simon’s eyes went wide and his eyebrows shot up. But he pressed his cheek into Jack’s hand and Jack knew he wanted to. He waited. Simon’s eyes dropped to his mouth, then slid back up again. He licked his lips. He blinked. Finally, he leaned in.
Jack had kissed a fair few people in his life. In fact, if you’d asked him, he would’ve said that he’d sampled near every kind of kiss in the books.
But nothing had prepared him for the gutting sweetness of Simon’s lips slowly pressed to his; the brush of Simon’s long eyelashes against his cheek.
Simon pulled back, blinking at Jack, mouth parted sweetly.
“Okay?” Jack said.
Simon nodded, eyes fixed on Jack’s mouth.
Jack pulled him in, Simon’s hands on his shoulders, Simon’s face to his. And Jack kissed him. Jack kissed him with all the reassurance and desire he could possibly transmit.
He felt Simon’s gasp, felt the shudder that ran through him when Jack touched his tongue with his own, and he made himself a promise that whenever the time was right, he would see Simon dissolve into gasps and shudders and screams.
Simon pressed closer to him and Jack brushed his fingers down Simon’s throat. Simon made a shocked sound of pleasure that tore through Jack, sent his mind racing in a dozen directions at once as he imagined all the things they could do.
Jack slid his tongue against Simon’s, slick and hot, tasting him. Simon gasped again and Jack groaned.
Then Simon hiccoughed.
Simon jerked away so quickly Jack almost fell forward off the bench. He clapped his hands over his mouth and his eyes were huge. He hiccoughed again.
“Hey,” Jack said, reaching out a hand. “You okay?”
Simon rolled his eyes and Jack could recognize his look of mortification by now, even with his hands covering half his face. He scrambled to his feet, face turning red again.
“Simon, hey. It’s no big deal. C’mere.”
Simon groaned, and this time it was not in pleasure. He was about to bolt, Jack could tell. He struggled to h
is feet as Simon ran through the bedroom door.
“Simon, dammit, don’t make me run after you when I can’t run! Fucking fuck,” he muttered at his leg. He grabbed his crutches and made his way to the living room as quickly as he could.
“Seriously, you promised your grandmother!”
But when he rounded the corner of the living room, Simon wasn’t pulling on his coat and shoes to leave. He was standing in the corner, face pressed to the wood, arms wrapped around himself.
“You look like the goddamn Blair Witch.”
Simon snorted, which could have been a laugh or an angry exhalation.
“Okay, okay, come on. Tell me what the big deal is, please. You hiccoughed. It’s not the end of the world. Hell, I burped in a girl’s mouth once.”
And, okay, he hadn’t quite meant to admit that, but anything to underline how little this mattered.
Simon shook his head, clearly not reassured.
When Jack got to him, he slid a hand up his spine. Simon didn’t move away, so he rested his palm on the back of Simon’s neck. He could feel his flush.
“Hey. You just embarrassed or is something really wrong? Cuz you’re scaring me a little. Been a while since someone’s actually hidden in a corner just to get away from me. And that was during dodgeball.”
Simon slumped.
“Just emb-barrassed,” he choked out.
“Okay.” Jack rubbed Simon’s neck and into his hair.
Slowly, Simon relaxed. He muttered something Jack couldn’t make out.
“What’s that?”
“Can’t believe I r-ruined it.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Jack said. “Hell, kiss me again right now and pretend it never happened, if you want to.”
“Can’t,” Simon said, peeking at Jack.
“Can’t kiss me again?”
Simon shook his head. “Can’t pret-t-tend.”
Jack was running his fingers through Simon’s hair, entranced by how soft it was.
“Yeah, how come?”
“C-cuz,” Simon said.
“Oh. Well, that clears things up,” Jack joked, giving Simon’s neck a little squeeze.
Simon snorted and elbowed him.
Jack steered him around by the shoulder, wanting to see his face.
“What’s up, darlin’?” he said. “Because why?”